Classroom Ban On Spanish Protested

When, if ever, is it appropriate for educators to require students
to refrain from speaking their native languages?

For a teacher in Arizona recently, the answer was to ban Spanish in
her high school classroom because, she reportedly said, the
English-only rule made it easier to manage her students.

The issue has come up in a different setting in Nebraska, where a
judge ordered a father not to speak "Hispanic" to his daughter during
visits with her.

The fierce criticism sparked by each incident underscores just how
volatile the topic of language, and how language is used, remains both
inside and outside schools in the United States.

Bilingual and multilingual educators say that bans like that of the
Arizona teacher are simply unjustified because everyone has a right to
speak his or her own language. They observe that many Americans seem to
feel uncomfortable— if not fearful—in the presence of
people who are speaking a language that is foreign to them.

They also contend that it's quite common for monolingual teachers to
ask students not to speak their native languages in their
classrooms.

On the other hand, some teachers argue that they have good reasons
to require students to speak only English in the classroom.

"I have always had an English-only rule," Ignacio Sanchez, an
English teacher at Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, Calif.,
wrote in an e-mail response last week to a reporter's request for
opinions on the issue. "This is not a punishment. It is a means for
students to more quickly learn English."

And Sally Wessely, who teaches English as a second language at
Centennial High School in Pueblo, Colo., wrote via e-mail that she
found that permitting students to speak their own languages in class
"led to division and suspicion."

She added: "It is not socially acceptable to engage in conversations
that exclude those around us."

Hot Topic

The recent incidents brought the debate home in two communities.

Earlier this month, a high school cosmetology teacher at the East
Valley Institute of Technology in Mesa, Ariz., told five girls not to
speak Spanish among themselves in her class. The teacher doesn't speak
Spanish.

Administrators at the regional vocational high school backed the
teacher. They said that she had a right to do so as a means of
classroom management, and that the girls were being disruptive.

But 16-year-old Patricia Otero asserts that she and her friends were
simply chatting in Spanish and laughing as other students were
permitted to do in English. The Mexican-American girl says the teacher
told them it was "rude" for them to speak Spanish because others in the
class couldn't understand them.

An East Valley assistant principal spent five hours explaining the
teacher's English-only rule to the students involved and some of their
parents, including Patricia's mother, Gabriela Otero. The incident was
covered by Arizona newspapers and television stations after Patricia
Otero spoke publicly about it at a Latino town hall meeting.

In the Nebraska instance, Sarpy County District Judge Ronald E.
Reagan required Eloy Amador, a 30-year-old Mexican-American, to stop
speaking "Hispanic" and use English when visiting his 5-year-old
daughter, who is in the custody of her mother.

Saying that it's not fair for the child to be put in situations
where people are speaking Spanish and she doesn't understand them,
Judge Reagan threatened to restrict Mr. Amador's visits if he didn't
use English with the girl, according to a transcript of the Sept. 15
hearing.

"It's difficult enough to learn the English language, you know," the
judge said.

The judge's ruling prompted Democratic state Sen. Ernie Chambers to
file a complaint with the state Committee on Judicial Qualifications.
The complaint argued that the judge discriminated against Mr. Amador by
prohibiting him from speaking Spanish.

Sen. Chambers also said in the complaint that the judge appeared to
be culturally ignorant, since he had referred to Spanish as "Hispanic,"
which is not a language. Judge Reagan has since removed himself from
the case.

Legal Rights

It's difficult for most observers of the issue to imagine a return
to the days when students in many U.S. schools would routinely be
castigated for using their native languages. But Americans continue to
disagree on whether it is sometimes appropriate to ask people to stick
with English.

"If you go back as far as I do," said William L. Taylor, a longtime
civil rights lawyer based in Washington, "you can remember a time in
schools in the Southwest when Mexican-American children were punished
for speaking their native language in the school halls and
playground."

That approach is now viewed as discriminatory and abusive, he
said.

Today, Mr. Taylor said, a teacher has a legal right to require
students to speak English for academic reasons. For instance, when a
teacher asks a question in English, the student should answer in
English, because it's part of the academic program, he said.

Mr. Taylor said a teacher wouldn't have much to stand on legally,
however, in requiring students to speak only English as a way to manage
the students. Similar arguments have failed in court for employers
seeking to prohibit workers from speaking their native languages in the
workplace, he said.

Jim J. Boulet Jr., the executive director of English First, a
Springfield, Va.-based organization that supports English-only laws and
policies in government, has a different take on the matter.

"A teacher may be forced into [making students stick with English]
because of civil rights law," he argued. "You are required to keep your
class free from ethnic slurs. If a teacher is unable to monitor that,
and a student comes in and says, 'This is what they are saying about
me,' you have a problem."

'No Inglés'

That logic makes sense to school officials in Mesa.

Sally E. Downey, the superintendent of the 2,500-student East Valley
Institute of Technology, which is its own school district, says the
cosmetology teacher is justified in having an English-only rule in her
classroom for safety reasons.

"What if you had a disruption in your classroom that spilled into a
fight, and you didn't know what was happening? That could be a safety
issue," Ms. Downey said. She surmised that the incident at her school
received public attention because when it occurred the news media were
"hurting for news stories."

But Patricia Otero, the daughter of a carpenter and a homemaker who
are both from Mexico and speak only Spanish, is still fired up about
the matter.

"I don't agree, and I'm going to keep on talking Spanish in the
classroom," she said in fluent English in an interview last week.

Referring to her teacher, who could not be reached for comment, she
said: "If she's not willing to cope with the situation, then she is in
the wrong profession. If she is not comfortable because other people
are speaking the language, then she should go to school to learn the
language."

School isn't the only place where Patricia is encountering language
rules.

In an interview in which Gabriela Otero supported her daughter's
position, she noted that for years, she's implemented a language rule
of her own. "La regla en mi casa es no inglés," she said.
"The rule in my house is no English."

Vol. 23, Issue 9, Pages 1, 18

Published in Print: October 29, 2003, as Classroom Ban On Spanish Protested

English First, an
organization that supports English-only laws and policies in
government, maintains a Weblog of daily news and
comment. See also "Assimilation,
Not Amnesty," an article by by Jim Boulet Jr., executive director
of English First, published by the National Review Online, Aug.
21, 2001.

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